Question

Describe the use of heroin in the United States from the 1960's to today?

Answer 1

Heroin was a quite a regular activity done by people in 1960s and 70s but then it seemed to go out of fashion and till 1990s it was quite in control but suddenly after 1990 substance abuse increased rapidly and in that particularly HEROIN  In America, by contrast, lakhs of Americans took the drug, twice as many as a decade ago.

Now the Question comes what was the reason behind sudden increase in consumption of Heroin majorly there are two reasons

One cause is the growing popularity of another drug: the prescription painkiller. Opioid painkillers such as OxyContin became more widely prescribed in the 1990s and 2000s. They are effective painkillers, but they are commonly abused: about 11 million Americans use them illegally every year. That has led to a crackdown on prescriptions: doctors can now check databases to make sure patients have not already been prescribed the drugs somewhere else, for instance. So they are harder to obtain. But that means that some prescription-pill addicts have turned to heroin. More than two-thirds of heroin addicts have previously abused prescription painkillers.

The second reason is that America gets its pure supply from Mexico. Between 2001 to 2010 Mexico increased the growth of Opium though it was fallen but was still higher than before. Now the effect of this in Mexico was resulting in United States as United States was getting more quantity of Heroin than before and due to this everyone was coming under the roof of substance abuse.

Now talking about statistics, According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), in 2016 about 948,000 Americans reported using heroin in the past year, a number that has been on the rise since 2007. This trend appears to be driven largely by young adults aged 18–25 among whom there have been the greatest increases. The number of people using heroin for the first time is high, with 170,000 people starting heroin use in 2016, nearly double the number of people in 2006 (90,000).

The impact of heroin use is felt all across the United States, with heroin being identified as the most or one of the most important drug use issues affecting several local regions from coast to coast. The rising harm associated with heroin use at the community level was presented in a report produced by the NIDA Community Epidemiology Work Group (CEWG). The CEWG is comprised of researchers from major metropolitan areas in the United States and selected foreign countries and provides community-level surveillance of drug use and its consequences to identify emerging trends.

Heroin use no longer predominates solely in urban areas. Several suburban and rural communities near Chicago and St. Louis report increasing amounts of heroin seized by officials as well as increasing numbers of overdose deaths due to heroin use. Heroin use is also on the rise in many urban areas among young adults aged 18-25. Individuals in this age group seeking treatment for heroin use increased from 11 percent of total admissions in 2008 to 26 percent in the first half of 2012.

The current example is that there was survey conducted by BBC in that BBC showed kids in high school are actually talking about using Heroin also in that survey even doctors are taking Heroin " I'm just going to die from this because number one: I can't ask for help, I'll lose my medical License.

Also it showed about Heroin deaths now out-number those from car accidents. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50. Overdose rates were highest among people aged 25 to 54 years.

Although millions of Americans are addicted to opioids, only 1 in 10 actually gets treatment.